With the creation of the F-Bike, we are coming tantalizingly close to an era of flying vehicles.

When most dream about the distant future, a world with flying cars comes to mind. The F-Bike is our first substantial step towards that future. The flying helicopter bike debuted on Jun. 12 at the PVA Expo Center in Prague. A joint venture of Czech and French engineers unveiled the flying bike, inspired by the fictional machines of sci-fi authors Jules Verne and Jaroslav Foglar. Their invention would finally answer to deep puddles and turbulence-causing cobbled roads: a bicycle that flies, if only at short distances for now.

The F-Bike is basically a mountain bike fitted with six propellers, powered by a pair of on-board batteries that deliver 47 kilowatts of power. The flying bike is stabilized by a software suite that took years to develop. While it may have been ready to be seen for the first time, the F-Bike is still very much in development. During its test flight earlier this month, the flying bike flew with a dummy onboard for five minutes. A crew on the ground used a remote control to fly the machine. It’s just a start for this novel form of transportation. The engineers behind the flying bicycle say lighter and more powerful batteries in the future will enable the bike to fly longer and faster, and maybe even help cyclists jump from landmass to landmass.

At the very least, the F-Bike will keep us dreaming like the RL Mark IV space skydiving suit and the Recon Jet HUD glasses. The future is here.